


Dog Tags

by butalasearwax



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Reichenbach Falls, Sherlock Holmes Returns after Reichenbach, sherlock bbc - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 13:26:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butalasearwax/pseuds/butalasearwax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock finally returns after two long years to find john somewhere he never thought he would; reenlisted in the army. (I'm not good with summaries don't judge me)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dog Tags

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to torture my friend with this so here it is. I wrote this over the summer (before season 3 came out) and it took a while to edit so I'm just posting it now. I hope you all don't mind. Thanks to my friends Meg and Isabel (Isabel is winchestarrs and benedictly on tumblr) for helping me edit and being the people to bounce ideas off of. Enjoy.

I stand at attention. My uniform is stiff and uncomfortable and my rifle sits heavily on my shoulder. I stare straight ahead, as per protocol. I catch Lieutenant Sebastian Fuller’s eye; he is standing across from me, his right arm in a sling. I can tell he has the same feeling clawing it’s way up through him as it is me: survivors guilt. This whole affair is too common an occurrence, so much so it has almost become routine. My eyes flick to my left, taking in the flag-covered coffin before they gaze blankly in front of me once more. I blink hard as memories begin playing out in my minds eye.  
***  
Our camp was eating breakfast as the sun began to rise over the craggy ridge, turning the sand and stone gold. The tents cast shadows reaching out like fingers across the ground.  
We were a small camp, moving between bases not too far from each other with only a few soldiers.  
I spotted Captain John Watson sitting off to the side alone. I walked over to him.  
“Mind if I join you?”  
“Morning, Calvin,” he said flatly. I remembered years ago, when he was a bright young doctor. He looked tired now. He didn’t have many friends besides myself, but, there was always something that seemed to keep him a little distant. People liked him. He was a nice man and a very good doctor. But he never got close. I thought he lost someone, but I never knew who.  
“You OK, John?” I asked.  
“Two years today,” he mumbled.  
“Sorry?”  
“Since the Reichenbach case. And the...and his fall,” he said.  
“Whose?”  
“He won. Moriarty won. He took Sherlock’s identity, took it with him to the grave, and Sherlock fell.” He sounded so broken, like a man who had held on to the edge of destruction and then some. He shook his head, forcing a smile.  
“Why am I telling you this?” he said. He wasn’t rude, he seemed to be genuinely asking.  
“I don’t know.”  
“Me neither,” he forced a smile. “I shouldn’t be troubling the major with my problems.”  
“Don’t worry about it, John.” I continued to eat my breakfast; John simply pushed his food around his plate with his fork.  
“You should eat,” I told him.  
“I’m not hungry.”  
“Eat. That’s an order, Captain.” We sat in silence for another few minutes. I was giving the camp a quick survey when I saw something in my peripheral vision; a man standing by the large rocks just outside of camp. He was tall and thin, with dark curly hair and a long grey coat. I couldn’t make out his face, but I had the strangest feeling I had seen him before somewhere. I raised my arm to nudge John and opened my mouth to point him out, but the words never left my mouth. A gunshot rang out and the camp was thrown into chaos.  
Lieutenant Sebastian Fuller had been shot. The camp was under attack. I jumped over a bin and seized my gun, diving behind another crate.  
“I need a med kit!” I heard John shout as people rushed about in a frenzy. I saw him helping Fuller to cover as someone rushed him medical supplies. I scanned the perimeter: seven men on the ridge and five more on the other side of camp. It wasn’t a large attack, but we were unprepared and without much cover.  
People were shouting instructions, their voices competing with the deafening blasts of gunfire. I dashed from crate to crate, trying to get a clear shot. Steady, aim, fire, repeat. Three down, now four. Adrenaline coursed through me, blocking everything else out. I had lost track of John; the man by the rocks had disappeared. Five left, four, I crouched under cover again, three, two...they were gone. I heard a shout- a call for ceasefire. I stood, turned slowly around, taking in our camp, assessing the situation of the soldiers.  
”Calvin!” I heard a yell, then felt someone collide with me, knocking me hard to the ground as a gunshot goes off. I was disoriented. My ears rang and the ground swam before my eyes. I didn’t know what had happened.  
Another gunshot breaks through the silence, pulling me back to reality. I followed the sound. The man in the long coat was standing there, behind the rocks, his arm raised, a gun aimed at a spot on the ridge behind me.  
He scrambled over the boulders and sprinted to where I had been standing moments before, his coat billowing out behind him. I shifted my gaze, following him, terrified of what I might see. My stomach filled with lead.  
John was kneeling in the sand, blood staining the front of his uniform, spreading from his chest. The man reached him and fell to his knees beside him, catching John in his arms as he collapsed. I rose to my feet and stumbled over to them, sinking back to the ground a few feet away from them.  
“John,” he whispers, “Nooo, no, no. no, no....”  
“Sherlock,” John gasps, his breath coming with difficulty, “You’re alive?”  
“You’re dying.”  
“You always have the most comforting things to say.” John forced a pained smile.  
“I came back.”  
“I knew you would.”  
“I left so I wouldn’t have to bury you, don’t make me do it anyways!”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“Don’t say that.” His voice was suddenly quiet- sad and pleading, as though trying to convince himself as well as John that they were both alright. John smiled, a smile that shattered my heart and blackened any pieces that could be stitched back together, a look full of sadness and regret, so small and scared, yet infinitely amazed and thankful that the man was there, holding him. His lip quivered and a cough began to shake his weakened body. His grip tightened, his fingers clenching a fistful of the man’s coat sleeve. Blood bubbled up from his mouth as he coughed, tracing a curling path down his cheek, deep crimson against his ashen complexion.  
“What do I do? I don’t know what to do!” the man cried frantically, watching John convulse in his arms, then looking around, his eyes pleading for help, showing panic for the first time. John’s fits subsided to sharp, painful rasps. He reached up, his fingers brushing lightly against the stranger’s cheek.  
“Keep your eyes fixed on me." The man turned his head, focusing on John, anguished understanding in his pale eyes.  
"What am I going to do?" he whispered, wiping the blood from John's mouth with a careful hand.  
"You're going to be OK."  
"John-"  
"Promise me you'll be OK."  
"I promise," the man choked, his voice thick; he brought his hand to his face, placing it softly over John's, pressing it into his cheek.  
"I'd better not see you anytime soon." John's voice was bittersweet. The man smiled down at him for a moment before his face fell and his eyes were broken once more.  
"Goodbye, Sherlock," John managed before he was seized again by another fit of coughing, blood trickling darkly from the corner of his mouth.  
"Nooo..." the man murmured thickly, shaking him dazedly. John let out a ragged breath and was silent, his arm hanging limply from the man's hand.  
“John? John?” his voice broke. He blinked, tears falling onto John’s face, mixing with his blood. John’s glassy eyes stared vacantly up at him; he passed his hand over John’s face, closing his eyelids over the empty stare. He let John’s hand fall, let his fingers brush the dusty sand, which was slowly turning red with blood, and pulled him in close, pressing his lips to John’s forehead.  
“Goodbye, John,” I heard him whisper as he slipped the dog tags from around John’s neck. I stood transfixed, barely aware of the commotion around us, watching him lay John’s body carefully on the ground, crossing his limp arms over his chest, cleaning the blood from John’s mouth again. His fingers lingered on the slight curve of his jawline, cupping his chin for a moment before rising slowly to his feet,  
The man turned, walked away silently, wind pushing his hair from his bleak face, his bloodstained coat blowing out behind him.  
“Who are you?” I found myself calling after him. Silence. “Who are you?” Again, nothing. He never answered, never stopped, never looked back. I watched as his figure grew smaller in the distance.  
“Sir?” The voice broke through my wondering, bringing me sharply back to reality; Lieutenant Anna Jefferson had come up behind me.  
“Who was that?” I asked, turning to look at her.  
“Who?”  
“Him!” I spun back around, pointing at the ridge where he had been only a moment before. He was gone. I stood staring at the spot where he had vanished.  
“Are you OK, sir?” She sounded confused and slightly concerned.  
“What? Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m just- report, Lieutenant.”  
“Fuller’s stabilized, three minor injuries, one unaccounted for, minimal damage.”  
“Who’s missing?” I asked, dreading the answer.  
“Watson, sir.” My throat clenched at the routine-sounding mention of his name; I couldn’t speak, I simply nodded in John’s direction. A look of shock flashed across her face as her eyes fell on the lifeless body.  
“I’m sorry,” she said, touching my shoulder in an attempt to be comforting. “But you know you’ll have to write a report.”  
“Yeah,” I choked out.  
“Come on. We need your help.” She gave my shoulder a small squeeze before turning and heading back to the centre of the camp. I looked from John’s body to the ridge once more, turned, and followed her. I kept staring straight ahead as I entered the commotion of the main camp, unable to bring myself to look back. It could have been me. It should have been me.

***  
A blast of gunfire sends me into a momentary panic. For a second, I think I am back in Afghanistan, back on the front lines, before a cold wind tells me I am in England and I remember I am at the funeral. The gunfire is a salute, not an attack.  
Sebastian is looking at me, question and concern in his eyes. I become aware of a tremor running through my tightly curled fists and a cold sweat drying on my skin. I give a discreet, reassuring sort of smile and try to wipe my palms on my trousers without anyone noticing. I slow my breathing and relax my muscles; I hadn’t realized how tense I had become.  
I can’t stop thinking about the man who had been with John at the camp. Who was he? Sherlock, I think I had heard John calling him. Sherlock...Sherlock...there he is. I see him out of the corner of my eye, standing in the back, just behind the crowd by a tree, the same long coat, the same bleak expression on the same angular face. An older woman breaks away from the congregation and walks slowly up to him. She takes his arm, looking up into the pale eyes that continue to stare blankly ahead. She stays for a minute, telling him something I can’t make out, before walking away. She had only gone a few steps before he reaches out and catches her by the hand. She turns, walking back to wrap him in a motherly embrace. I watch him rest his head on hers, burying his face in her greying hair.  
Someone nudges me; I bring my attention back to realize we’re leaving, marching orderly down the aisle until we finally hear that we’re dismissed. The soldiers around dissipate, leaving me and Sebastian.  
“Coming?” he asks.  
“No,” I say shortly.  
“Thank him for me, will you?” He motions to his arm in a sling. “I owe him.” I nod. “You alright?”  
“Yeah.”  
“I’ll see you around, then.” He starts to walk off. “And Calvin?” He calls after me. “I’m not alright either.”  
I stand alone; everyone else has left. I don’t quite know what to do with myself. I turn to leave when I catch sight of the man in the grey coat standing by John’s grave. I walk quietly over to him. He doesn’t appear to notice.  
“Who are you?”  
“Sherlock Holmes,” he says without looking at me.  
“Was he your friend?”  
“I don’t have friends,” he whispers, fingering John’s dog tags, light glinting off them as he turns them over and over again in his hand. “I just had one. Not anymore.”  
“You, uh, you were close, weren’t you?”  
“I had no idea he would be so affected.”  
“He died a hero, if it helps. Saved me. And Sebastian.”  
“I told him once that heroes didn’t exist.”  
“He mentioned that. Said it was the one time you were wrong.”  
“No. Even if they did I wouldn’t be one of them. I caused this.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“He used to come here a lot,” he continues, gesturing to the headstone next to John’s grave.  
“How do you know?”  
“Indentations here in the grass. It’s more yellowed too, clearly someone’s constantly been treading on it.”  
“How do you know it was him?”  
“Who else would visit my grave?”  
“Yours?” I look closely at the headstone he had indicated. Sherlock Holmes, it reads. I look incredulously from him to his grave, to John’s, and back again.  
I remember hearing about the suicide of the fake genius detective three years ago. John had reenlisted in the army not long after. He had barely given a reason for returning, let alone a name for the friend I assumed he had lost that he sometimes mentioned. I thought maybe the loss had to do with his return, but I never made the connection. The friend, the flatmate, the colleague, the detective- they all were this man. John hadn’t just lost a friend, it was everything.  
“You’re Sherlock Holmes.”  
“As I said.”  
“Can I ask you something?” I take his silence for a yes. “Was it hard? Making him believe you were dead?”  
“Well my brother helped, then there was Molly in the morgue, so it wasn’t impossible.”  
“I mean for you.”  
“It kept him safe.”  
“Until-” I say, gesturing at the fresh grave.  
“I never meant for this to happen.”  
“I know.”  
“I promised him I’d be OK. But I’m not, I’m not OK.”  
“Well why would you be? Because you’re Mister Sherlock Holmes, the worlds greatest detective? A well oiled psychopathic machine?”  
“I’m not a psychopath, I’m a high functioning sociopath.”  
“No. You’re a human being.” I take his shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze before turning and walking away. “It’s OK to act like one.”


End file.
